Collaboration Details

Title of Collaborative Activity:

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance in Recipients of Human Growth Hormone, National Hormone and Pituitary Program (NHPP)

Description of Collaborative Activity:

From 1963 to 1985, the National Hormone and Pituitary Program (NHPP), funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), sent Human Growth Hormone (HGH) made from human pituitary glands to hundreds of doctors across the country. As a part of research studies, doctors used the hormone to treat nearly 7,700 children for failure to grow. In 1985, the HHS learned that three people treated with pituitary HGH died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a rare, incurable brain disease. The HHS immediately stopped distributing the hormone and began a national study to learn more about how pituitary HGH treatment may have caused this problem.